[TC12] I Need You (Have We Really Not Lost Everything) - [1/2]
I Need You (Have We Really Not Lost Everything)
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Lay/Chen
Genre: AU!Drama/Minor!Angst, Romance
Summary: Jongdae's just about to reach the end, he can't see around him nor even recognize his own name. The best memories that should play, can't. Jongdae may not be able to revisit the past, but it comes back to help and bring him back.
// Fog //
네가 필요해
Lay/Chen
我們真的都沒有失去嗎?
Though shorter of the two, he enjoyed holding him from behind, squeezing him every so often as they walk in this awkward way by the streets. It’s so late at night in routes they don’t usually use, ensuring their privacy.
It’s on these walks that they like to imagine the possibilities. Yixing is holding up crumpled sheets, holding it high above so the other could see.
“How about this one?”
“It looks it’ll fall apart any minute,” Jongdae comments on the small photo of the house. Yixing flips through another page, and keeps asking until he finally holds it just above his shoulder. “This is the one.”
Jongdae peers over his shoulders, and smiles. It’s perfect.
“We still have a lot of things to do here though,” Yixing laments.
“One day.” Jongdae adds.
The taller of the two places his hands on the other’s intertwined ones. “Let’s spend our future there then.”
Jongdae gave him a tighter squeeze that makes him wince. “I like that idea,” he murmurs muffled into his jacket.
When they met, they were fast friends in ideal circumstances. There was no obstacle in their mind, no sense of hesitation or fear, their feelings were mutual and it soon came together to what they both considered were their happiest times.
They had fallen in love.
-
The Present Day
“You’ll be okay,” she encourages.
His son smiles. “Just sign these papers Dad. You’ve always worried about the future of this company,”
He places it in his father’s weak grip and encourages in gentle whisper. “Just sign.”
He remembers lifting that pen and trying, yet the tip barely graces the page and a large streak is swiped across the bottom’s edge. When his grip collapses, the pen clatters on the floor.
“He won’t be able to sign at all,” she says urgently, her husband is calm throughout it and looks back at the marked page.
“It has to be legible if the board is to believe it.”
She held onto her purse, dressed and prepared for their evening out. “Your brother called, again. If we keep ignoring Sehun, he’ll get suspicious.”
Jongin walks past his wife who follows him outside and utters as he prepares his jacket, “tell him what we’ve always told him then. Dad’s getting sicker.”
“He’ll come running then.” His wife hushes sharply. Her husband finally turns to her and smiles with assurance.
“He’s abroad, it’ll take him a good two days before he comes here. And by then, he’ll just have to give a eulogy.”
And like that, his father’s fate was decided.
-
Jongdae felt so tired, constrained as not a single thought could form, any sense he could make refused to approach him. His mind was in a constant fog that he couldn’t escape. If he could have seen properly, he might have fathomed just how much danger he was in. And without knowing it, he struggles to hold on.
There was a quiet bang in the distance.
“Jongdae,”
Thick gloves were placed on his cheeks, but the man doesn’t wake him. Jongdae’s still breathing.
Jongdae is lifted from the bed and carried out of the room. There’s a sense of urgency throughout.
“SIR!”
“Say another word-” the voice warns and there’s a brief scuffle as voices begin around the house. A rush of air hits the man for the first time in months and he’s soon put into a car, and it rushes as it drives off.
“Xiumin,” the man says into his cell as he weaves through the city. “Call me back, it’s an emergency.”
When Jongdae’s carried inside, he’s able to open his eyes for a few seconds.
He’s taken to a place he’s been before, but doesn’t remember.
Yixing paced by the window as his friend examined the figure laying on the bed. Xiumin cautiously glanced at his friend who finally looked back from the large window.
Xiumin examines the taken man. “The hospital would be the best place. There’s only so much I can do here.”
“It’s not safe there.” Yixing says, and out of paranoia and peeks through the thin gaps from the blinds. “Though the hospital directors there may not know of it, idle gossip will reach them. If they even come around and recognize him-”
“I promise you, nothing will happen to him.” Xiumin insists. Yixing looks back at Jongdae who’s enveloped in a cold sweat, hands shaking.
Yixing only reluctantly accepts.
Thankfully, they manage through the worse.
Xiumin starts the IV drip and taps as the drops fall once Jongdae’s stabilized. “The toxins in his body will be cleared out.”
“Is there any permanent side-effects?” Yixing asks, lingering by. He’s refused to leave his side.
“Not that I believe, the toxins were made to eventually and dangerously weaken his immune system, any disease he could have contracted might have ended him.”
Yixing sat on the seat by the bed. If their plan had carried out, Jongdae would have surely died. With his recent health and doctor visits, the blame would be swept under assumptions that it had something to do with his heart.
Yixing slowly looks up and sees his friend looking at him intently. “What?” Yixing starts.
Xiumin met his friend’s intent gaze. He was giving Yixing the chance to tell him everything, but that wasn’t going to happen. “I’ve known you for years, and never once have I known you were associated with him. And I have a feeling there’s other things you’re not telling me. I could pretend that it’s because you’d think it’d be safer to keep me in the dark. Did you assume I’d withhold treatment if you had? Or that I’d refuse to turn a blind eye and turn you in?”
The man he was helping was Jongdae, a man whose wealth was established from old money and with many hands in all trades of business. It wasn’t easy to say, someone of his position could help or destroy their own economy.
Yixing just avoids answering, and that mildly bothers him. “Yixing, his family won’t just accept his disappearance. They must’ve already contacted the authorities. The last thing I want is to see your picture plastered on the news.
“If I hadn’t done what I did, his death would have been airing instead.” Yixing refutes. “You see the state he’s in, this wasn’t just to make him sick, they intended to kill him. All for a damn title and some cash.” He gestures to the patient who still hadn’t reach consciousness. Yixing then stands. “If you’re going to report me, fine. I won’t drag your name with me. But let him rest first, I won’t return him to them with his state like this.”
Xiumin studies him for a bit more. He chooses to stay quiet as he glances at his vitals, “he’s only experiencing the beginnings of his withdrawal. Be prepared, it’s not something pleasing to see.”
The doctor finishes the last of it when he walks to the door. He turns on Yixing and narrows his eyes at the man who kept his back turned, “Don’t always assume the worst of your friends.”
Yixing kept his gaze lowered, subsiding the guilt for his friend, someone who didn’t have to be involved he reminds himself. His guilt only increases as he sees Jongdae lying on the bed, still not awake.
“They won’t find you here,” Yixing assures, kneeling on the bed overhead the other. Seeing Jongdae’s weakened state, his pale lips and quivering shoulders, it tightens his chest.
They definitely wouldn’t find him though he’s within the same city. Yixing’s been out of his life for so long, that their shared history was irrelevant now.
-
Some nights are harder than others.
Jongdae shook uncontrollably, clammy hands digging into the sheets, distorted screams escaping.
Yixing knows it’ll do little good, but he continues to offer words of encouragement, rushing to his side and cradling the man whose trembling body still felt the after effects. He never leaves his side and comforts the man who barely knows he’s there.
Gradually the effects diminish as times passes, and the stranger’s embrace eventually calms him. He feels secure as he rests against him.
-
It had started with his surgery on his discs of his spine from a recent car crash, he recalled taking medication for that.
Then that medication made him feel a little more tired each day, but his daughter-in-law smiles as she dotes him with the pills on hand the meals right beside it.
It’s somewhere along those slurred days that his mind is in a constant haze.
Gradually, he begins to sense his thoughts better, he could see what was around him and know what they are. This place isn’t so foreign to him now. Though the bedding has changed, the furniture inside are different and updated, the walls a different color even, the room he now remembers.
And when the door opens and in walks Yixing, Jongdae feels an old sense of deja vu.
“What... What am I doing here?” His voice comes out weaker than he preferred.
“You were hospitalized, I got suspicious of the staff and requested you move back here.” Yixing says truthfully without holding back. “I helped you escape your home, do you remember?”
All Jongdae could manage was a groggy headache that refused to shake off. “...Not really.”
Yixing nods. “I’ve had some suspicions about your health.” He starts.
Jongdae raised his puzzled gaze. “How?” Yixing sits down on the edge of the bed to his right, and leans forward to check on him. “We don’t run in the same circles.”
More like they hadn’t spoken to one another in years. Decades.
“We don’t.” Yixing agrees. “I have a friend who’s in talks with your company and mentioned that you haven’t been coming by the meetings for the merger. He’s heard from some of the employees that you were sick.”
“How was that suspicious to you?”
“Because I haven’t seen you once caught a cold, you’ve always been too strong for that. Even if you had, that wouldn’t let that stop you. You always put your work before your health.” Yixing said lightly, examining every bit of him.
It felt odd that their conversation happens so naturally after so long. This was never how Jongdae imagined it to be.
Jongdae clenches his eyes, his body ached uncomfortably but he wasn’t in too much pain. He feels a hand against his cheek, helping to lift his face. Jongdae kept his eyes closed.
His body was still sore, but his heart clenched in the worst way possible. Jongdae keeps a straight face though, the last thing he needed was to show Yixing he still had an effect on him. And when Jongdae opens his eyes, he forces himself to look Yixing, to prove that he felt nothing.
Yixing hesitantly lowered his hand and stood up, pulling himself away.
Jongdae sees no one else in the apartment and realizes they’re the only two there. The only other person he sees, is a doctor who checks on him. When Xiumin does come by, Jongdae doesn’t say much.
“He’s doing much better now, but I suggest you still keep observation.” Xiumin suggests. “Call me if anything happens.”
Jongdae glances at the bandage on his arm where the IV drip was removed. And when Xiumin speaks with Yixing in private in the living room. Jongdae decides what he needed after all this was to clear his mind and process what’s occurred, and better yet, to take a hot shower.
Yet standing up took more strength than he realized he needed, still he’s too stubborn to ask for help and manages his way to the closet. None of his clothes are here but he just opens Yixing’s and takes whatever may fit.
He’s halfway through putting on a shirt when he hears the door open and steps in Yixing.
“Have you contacted my family?” Jongdae asks him.
“I didn’t know who in your family to trust, so I haven’t said anything as of yet.”
“Can I borrow your cell then?”
Jongdae holds out his hand expectantly, but the man gives no sign of listening. “I know you’d prefer elsewhere, but I hope you stay for a bit longer.” Yixing begins calmly.
Jongdae finishes putting on the shirt and does his best to remain sitting up.. “I can always get better somewhere else. Even if it’s not at my own home.”
Rejection reflected in his eyes, and Yixing remained as stoic as he could be though his emotions seep through. Jongdae is careful not to make the same mistake.
He may have trusted Yixing, more than anyone in his life, but it didn’t mean being in this place didn’t hurt any less. Nearly every inch of this place held a memory, and they were rushing in too quickly.
“I’ll pay for it.” Yixing offers.
“I have my own wealth.”
“That your son can track.” Yixing reminds. “Your family’s reputation is built enough in this city, he’ll find you with no problem. Just stay here,” Yixing pleads. “Stay here until I know you’re well again, enough that they can’t do anything to you.”
His voice weakens, timid almost as he faces the other.
“I promised I’d always do what’s best for you, right?”
But that promise was made so long ago. Can it last this long?
Jongdae tightens his grip, fingers into his arms at the decision he has to make. He nods and turns away, hiding the pain that’s visible on his face.
“Fine,” Jongdae agrees and offers nothing more.
Yixing’s gaze relaxes as he’s faced with Jongdae’s back turned on him. There’s nothing more he could want than envelop Jongdae in his arms and assure him that everything’s alright. The urge- the need was almost unshakable.
Yet Jongdae’s tone acts like a barrier and reminds Yixing why he can’t. It’s what keeps him from doing so and acting on his whims, and leaving the room as the other would prefer.
-
Jongdae feels weak, it’s worse that he feels it at all, but it’s all the time now. There’s hardly a minute where he’s at least fine. And when he walks to the bathroom, he collapses against the sink and grips the counter tightly.
Sunken to the floor, he feels Yixing help him up. Jongdae’s body tenses instantly and Yixing mistakes it for fear.
“I promise, I won’t hurt you.” Yixing murmurs and helps lift him up.
Jongdae’s lowered to the filled tub and lays back against the wall, head still kept low as Yixing keeps his back to him. Jongdae’s eyes do their best to focus on the rippling water, but betray and drift to the other man.
"You heard the rumors that I was going to be engaged, and the night I wanted to talk to you, you ended it."
Yixing’s shoulders stiffened, unable to see his expression, that was the only hint Jongdae could go by. "I was afraid of what I was going to hear." Yixing explains simply. “I knew of the pressure they were placing on you.”
"Really?" Jongdae asks. "I was going to suggest running away until the marriage stint died down.” Jongdae buried his hands beneath the water. “I guess our assumptions led us nowhere."
Yixing cleared his throat. “I didn’t want to have your hands tied.”
“Then you’re claiming you were doing it for my own good?”
At Yixing’s silence, Jongdae tightens his fist.
“You’ve always thought you knew what people wanted, and asked questions later. You didn’t want to get hurt first. If you had meant any of what you just told me, then why aren’t we at least friends? Why are we strangers to one another?”
How many days he spent wondering about the other? He hopes he’s eating right, that he’s in good health, that he’s happy. Even without him...
Yixing was too selfish.
Yixing stands up and Jongdae lifts his head, hands clutching the tub’s edge. “If you were so ready to move on, why didn’t you return to China once we ended? You’ve always claimed I was the reason you stayed. If you missed home so much, why did you settle here?” Jongdae takes a deep breath. “If you truly believe it, then why hadn’t you contacted me since the wedding?”
Yixing’s hand is against the doorframe, and Jongdae clears his throat.
“We lost contact completely, and I know it wasn’t because I didn’t try...”
Yixing shifted his eyes. “I didn’t think it’d be appropriate to your wife.”
“Because we had a history? Or because you were afraid I’d fall for temptation?” Jongdae poses quietly.
“No, you were always better than that.” Yixing utters and steps outside.
Jongdae lowers his eyes, fingers slipping beneath the water. “Sometimes Yixing, you give me too much credit.”
He had always been deemed a good person, loyal, good qualities that benefited his benevolent character. Like others though, he’s always had a weakness. He’d have done anything for his family, and Yixing, he needed to have him in his life. And Jongdae didn’t care what he’d have to give up for that to happen.
Jongdae would have left his wife, abandon his family’s hopes and ideals without a second thought, the moment Yixing asked him.
If this was how Yixing was going to leave his heart, his resolve, he never should have bothered rescuing him.
Not now, not like this.
| Part 2 |
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Lay/Chen
Genre: AU!Drama/Minor!Angst, Romance
Summary: Jongdae's just about to reach the end, he can't see around him nor even recognize his own name. The best memories that should play, can't. Jongdae may not be able to revisit the past, but it comes back to help and bring him back.
// Fog //
네가 필요해
Lay/Chen
我們真的都沒有失去嗎?
Though shorter of the two, he enjoyed holding him from behind, squeezing him every so often as they walk in this awkward way by the streets. It’s so late at night in routes they don’t usually use, ensuring their privacy.
It’s on these walks that they like to imagine the possibilities. Yixing is holding up crumpled sheets, holding it high above so the other could see.
“How about this one?”
“It looks it’ll fall apart any minute,” Jongdae comments on the small photo of the house. Yixing flips through another page, and keeps asking until he finally holds it just above his shoulder. “This is the one.”
Jongdae peers over his shoulders, and smiles. It’s perfect.
“We still have a lot of things to do here though,” Yixing laments.
“One day.” Jongdae adds.
The taller of the two places his hands on the other’s intertwined ones. “Let’s spend our future there then.”
Jongdae gave him a tighter squeeze that makes him wince. “I like that idea,” he murmurs muffled into his jacket.
When they met, they were fast friends in ideal circumstances. There was no obstacle in their mind, no sense of hesitation or fear, their feelings were mutual and it soon came together to what they both considered were their happiest times.
They had fallen in love.
-
The Present Day
“You’ll be okay,” she encourages.
His son smiles. “Just sign these papers Dad. You’ve always worried about the future of this company,”
He places it in his father’s weak grip and encourages in gentle whisper. “Just sign.”
He remembers lifting that pen and trying, yet the tip barely graces the page and a large streak is swiped across the bottom’s edge. When his grip collapses, the pen clatters on the floor.
“He won’t be able to sign at all,” she says urgently, her husband is calm throughout it and looks back at the marked page.
“It has to be legible if the board is to believe it.”
She held onto her purse, dressed and prepared for their evening out. “Your brother called, again. If we keep ignoring Sehun, he’ll get suspicious.”
Jongin walks past his wife who follows him outside and utters as he prepares his jacket, “tell him what we’ve always told him then. Dad’s getting sicker.”
“He’ll come running then.” His wife hushes sharply. Her husband finally turns to her and smiles with assurance.
“He’s abroad, it’ll take him a good two days before he comes here. And by then, he’ll just have to give a eulogy.”
And like that, his father’s fate was decided.
-
Jongdae felt so tired, constrained as not a single thought could form, any sense he could make refused to approach him. His mind was in a constant fog that he couldn’t escape. If he could have seen properly, he might have fathomed just how much danger he was in. And without knowing it, he struggles to hold on.
There was a quiet bang in the distance.
“Jongdae,”
Thick gloves were placed on his cheeks, but the man doesn’t wake him. Jongdae’s still breathing.
Jongdae is lifted from the bed and carried out of the room. There’s a sense of urgency throughout.
“SIR!”
“Say another word-” the voice warns and there’s a brief scuffle as voices begin around the house. A rush of air hits the man for the first time in months and he’s soon put into a car, and it rushes as it drives off.
“Xiumin,” the man says into his cell as he weaves through the city. “Call me back, it’s an emergency.”
When Jongdae’s carried inside, he’s able to open his eyes for a few seconds.
He’s taken to a place he’s been before, but doesn’t remember.
Yixing paced by the window as his friend examined the figure laying on the bed. Xiumin cautiously glanced at his friend who finally looked back from the large window.
Xiumin examines the taken man. “The hospital would be the best place. There’s only so much I can do here.”
“It’s not safe there.” Yixing says, and out of paranoia and peeks through the thin gaps from the blinds. “Though the hospital directors there may not know of it, idle gossip will reach them. If they even come around and recognize him-”
“I promise you, nothing will happen to him.” Xiumin insists. Yixing looks back at Jongdae who’s enveloped in a cold sweat, hands shaking.
Yixing only reluctantly accepts.
Thankfully, they manage through the worse.
Xiumin starts the IV drip and taps as the drops fall once Jongdae’s stabilized. “The toxins in his body will be cleared out.”
“Is there any permanent side-effects?” Yixing asks, lingering by. He’s refused to leave his side.
“Not that I believe, the toxins were made to eventually and dangerously weaken his immune system, any disease he could have contracted might have ended him.”
Yixing sat on the seat by the bed. If their plan had carried out, Jongdae would have surely died. With his recent health and doctor visits, the blame would be swept under assumptions that it had something to do with his heart.
Yixing slowly looks up and sees his friend looking at him intently. “What?” Yixing starts.
Xiumin met his friend’s intent gaze. He was giving Yixing the chance to tell him everything, but that wasn’t going to happen. “I’ve known you for years, and never once have I known you were associated with him. And I have a feeling there’s other things you’re not telling me. I could pretend that it’s because you’d think it’d be safer to keep me in the dark. Did you assume I’d withhold treatment if you had? Or that I’d refuse to turn a blind eye and turn you in?”
The man he was helping was Jongdae, a man whose wealth was established from old money and with many hands in all trades of business. It wasn’t easy to say, someone of his position could help or destroy their own economy.
Yixing just avoids answering, and that mildly bothers him. “Yixing, his family won’t just accept his disappearance. They must’ve already contacted the authorities. The last thing I want is to see your picture plastered on the news.
“If I hadn’t done what I did, his death would have been airing instead.” Yixing refutes. “You see the state he’s in, this wasn’t just to make him sick, they intended to kill him. All for a damn title and some cash.” He gestures to the patient who still hadn’t reach consciousness. Yixing then stands. “If you’re going to report me, fine. I won’t drag your name with me. But let him rest first, I won’t return him to them with his state like this.”
Xiumin studies him for a bit more. He chooses to stay quiet as he glances at his vitals, “he’s only experiencing the beginnings of his withdrawal. Be prepared, it’s not something pleasing to see.”
The doctor finishes the last of it when he walks to the door. He turns on Yixing and narrows his eyes at the man who kept his back turned, “Don’t always assume the worst of your friends.”
Yixing kept his gaze lowered, subsiding the guilt for his friend, someone who didn’t have to be involved he reminds himself. His guilt only increases as he sees Jongdae lying on the bed, still not awake.
“They won’t find you here,” Yixing assures, kneeling on the bed overhead the other. Seeing Jongdae’s weakened state, his pale lips and quivering shoulders, it tightens his chest.
They definitely wouldn’t find him though he’s within the same city. Yixing’s been out of his life for so long, that their shared history was irrelevant now.
-
Some nights are harder than others.
Jongdae shook uncontrollably, clammy hands digging into the sheets, distorted screams escaping.
Yixing knows it’ll do little good, but he continues to offer words of encouragement, rushing to his side and cradling the man whose trembling body still felt the after effects. He never leaves his side and comforts the man who barely knows he’s there.
Gradually the effects diminish as times passes, and the stranger’s embrace eventually calms him. He feels secure as he rests against him.
-
It had started with his surgery on his discs of his spine from a recent car crash, he recalled taking medication for that.
Then that medication made him feel a little more tired each day, but his daughter-in-law smiles as she dotes him with the pills on hand the meals right beside it.
It’s somewhere along those slurred days that his mind is in a constant haze.
Gradually, he begins to sense his thoughts better, he could see what was around him and know what they are. This place isn’t so foreign to him now. Though the bedding has changed, the furniture inside are different and updated, the walls a different color even, the room he now remembers.
And when the door opens and in walks Yixing, Jongdae feels an old sense of deja vu.
“What... What am I doing here?” His voice comes out weaker than he preferred.
“You were hospitalized, I got suspicious of the staff and requested you move back here.” Yixing says truthfully without holding back. “I helped you escape your home, do you remember?”
All Jongdae could manage was a groggy headache that refused to shake off. “...Not really.”
Yixing nods. “I’ve had some suspicions about your health.” He starts.
Jongdae raised his puzzled gaze. “How?” Yixing sits down on the edge of the bed to his right, and leans forward to check on him. “We don’t run in the same circles.”
More like they hadn’t spoken to one another in years. Decades.
“We don’t.” Yixing agrees. “I have a friend who’s in talks with your company and mentioned that you haven’t been coming by the meetings for the merger. He’s heard from some of the employees that you were sick.”
“How was that suspicious to you?”
“Because I haven’t seen you once caught a cold, you’ve always been too strong for that. Even if you had, that wouldn’t let that stop you. You always put your work before your health.” Yixing said lightly, examining every bit of him.
It felt odd that their conversation happens so naturally after so long. This was never how Jongdae imagined it to be.
Jongdae clenches his eyes, his body ached uncomfortably but he wasn’t in too much pain. He feels a hand against his cheek, helping to lift his face. Jongdae kept his eyes closed.
His body was still sore, but his heart clenched in the worst way possible. Jongdae keeps a straight face though, the last thing he needed was to show Yixing he still had an effect on him. And when Jongdae opens his eyes, he forces himself to look Yixing, to prove that he felt nothing.
Yixing hesitantly lowered his hand and stood up, pulling himself away.
Jongdae sees no one else in the apartment and realizes they’re the only two there. The only other person he sees, is a doctor who checks on him. When Xiumin does come by, Jongdae doesn’t say much.
“He’s doing much better now, but I suggest you still keep observation.” Xiumin suggests. “Call me if anything happens.”
Jongdae glances at the bandage on his arm where the IV drip was removed. And when Xiumin speaks with Yixing in private in the living room. Jongdae decides what he needed after all this was to clear his mind and process what’s occurred, and better yet, to take a hot shower.
Yet standing up took more strength than he realized he needed, still he’s too stubborn to ask for help and manages his way to the closet. None of his clothes are here but he just opens Yixing’s and takes whatever may fit.
He’s halfway through putting on a shirt when he hears the door open and steps in Yixing.
“Have you contacted my family?” Jongdae asks him.
“I didn’t know who in your family to trust, so I haven’t said anything as of yet.”
“Can I borrow your cell then?”
Jongdae holds out his hand expectantly, but the man gives no sign of listening. “I know you’d prefer elsewhere, but I hope you stay for a bit longer.” Yixing begins calmly.
Jongdae finishes putting on the shirt and does his best to remain sitting up.. “I can always get better somewhere else. Even if it’s not at my own home.”
Rejection reflected in his eyes, and Yixing remained as stoic as he could be though his emotions seep through. Jongdae is careful not to make the same mistake.
He may have trusted Yixing, more than anyone in his life, but it didn’t mean being in this place didn’t hurt any less. Nearly every inch of this place held a memory, and they were rushing in too quickly.
“I’ll pay for it.” Yixing offers.
“I have my own wealth.”
“That your son can track.” Yixing reminds. “Your family’s reputation is built enough in this city, he’ll find you with no problem. Just stay here,” Yixing pleads. “Stay here until I know you’re well again, enough that they can’t do anything to you.”
His voice weakens, timid almost as he faces the other.
“I promised I’d always do what’s best for you, right?”
But that promise was made so long ago. Can it last this long?
Jongdae tightens his grip, fingers into his arms at the decision he has to make. He nods and turns away, hiding the pain that’s visible on his face.
“Fine,” Jongdae agrees and offers nothing more.
Yixing’s gaze relaxes as he’s faced with Jongdae’s back turned on him. There’s nothing more he could want than envelop Jongdae in his arms and assure him that everything’s alright. The urge- the need was almost unshakable.
Yet Jongdae’s tone acts like a barrier and reminds Yixing why he can’t. It’s what keeps him from doing so and acting on his whims, and leaving the room as the other would prefer.
-
Jongdae feels weak, it’s worse that he feels it at all, but it’s all the time now. There’s hardly a minute where he’s at least fine. And when he walks to the bathroom, he collapses against the sink and grips the counter tightly.
Sunken to the floor, he feels Yixing help him up. Jongdae’s body tenses instantly and Yixing mistakes it for fear.
“I promise, I won’t hurt you.” Yixing murmurs and helps lift him up.
Jongdae’s lowered to the filled tub and lays back against the wall, head still kept low as Yixing keeps his back to him. Jongdae’s eyes do their best to focus on the rippling water, but betray and drift to the other man.
"You heard the rumors that I was going to be engaged, and the night I wanted to talk to you, you ended it."
Yixing’s shoulders stiffened, unable to see his expression, that was the only hint Jongdae could go by. "I was afraid of what I was going to hear." Yixing explains simply. “I knew of the pressure they were placing on you.”
"Really?" Jongdae asks. "I was going to suggest running away until the marriage stint died down.” Jongdae buried his hands beneath the water. “I guess our assumptions led us nowhere."
Yixing cleared his throat. “I didn’t want to have your hands tied.”
“Then you’re claiming you were doing it for my own good?”
At Yixing’s silence, Jongdae tightens his fist.
“You’ve always thought you knew what people wanted, and asked questions later. You didn’t want to get hurt first. If you had meant any of what you just told me, then why aren’t we at least friends? Why are we strangers to one another?”
How many days he spent wondering about the other? He hopes he’s eating right, that he’s in good health, that he’s happy. Even without him...
Yixing was too selfish.
Yixing stands up and Jongdae lifts his head, hands clutching the tub’s edge. “If you were so ready to move on, why didn’t you return to China once we ended? You’ve always claimed I was the reason you stayed. If you missed home so much, why did you settle here?” Jongdae takes a deep breath. “If you truly believe it, then why hadn’t you contacted me since the wedding?”
Yixing’s hand is against the doorframe, and Jongdae clears his throat.
“We lost contact completely, and I know it wasn’t because I didn’t try...”
Yixing shifted his eyes. “I didn’t think it’d be appropriate to your wife.”
“Because we had a history? Or because you were afraid I’d fall for temptation?” Jongdae poses quietly.
“No, you were always better than that.” Yixing utters and steps outside.
Jongdae lowers his eyes, fingers slipping beneath the water. “Sometimes Yixing, you give me too much credit.”
He had always been deemed a good person, loyal, good qualities that benefited his benevolent character. Like others though, he’s always had a weakness. He’d have done anything for his family, and Yixing, he needed to have him in his life. And Jongdae didn’t care what he’d have to give up for that to happen.
Jongdae would have left his wife, abandon his family’s hopes and ideals without a second thought, the moment Yixing asked him.
If this was how Yixing was going to leave his heart, his resolve, he never should have bothered rescuing him.
Not now, not like this.
| Part 2 |